Lower Pottsgrove woman who stole from grandmother behind with restitution

COURTHOUSE — Instead of paying back the estimated $171,000 she stole from her 91-year-old grandmother, a Lower Pottsgrove woman “is going on gambling junkets,” alleged a lawyer for the grandmother’s estate in court papers.

Convicted thief Joelle Paige Speidel, who is currently serving probation in connection with the theft, has not made timely, regular, court-ordered restitution payments to the victim’s estate, James J. Corsetti Jr., a New Hanover lawyer representing the estate’s executor, alleged in court papers.

Corsetti alleged Speidel, 32, presently is working full time, according to information she supplied to adult probation officers. Additionally, she operates “a very profitable Internet business on the side,” Paige’s Purses, “which is constantly selling all sorts of items on a regular basis,” Corsetti claimed.

“The petitioner believes that instead of paying her restitution as required, that she is going on gambling junkets, as she is involved with some poker organization that sets up trips at various gambling hot spots,” Corsetti alleged in papers filed in Montgomery County Court on Wednesday.

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Corsetti believes Speidel could pay $1,500 per month in restitution to the estate and he has asked a judge to order Speidel to do so until the full restitution is paid.

If Judge Carolyn Carluccio holds a hearing on the matter, Corsetti asked that Speidel be required to bring to court copies of her tax returns for the past three years to determine her income and the sources of that income.

If Speidel cannot or will not pay the restitution, Corsetti asked that Speidel’s probation be revoked and that a judge craft a new probation order to compel her to pay the restitution on a regular basis.

In July 2010, the late Judge Richard J. Hodgson sentenced Speidel, then 30, of Sanatoga Road, to 10-23-months in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility for stealing more than $170,000 from her grandmother’s savings account, leaving her penniless.

Speidel pleaded guilty to felony charges of theft by unlawful taking or disposition and identity theft in connection with the scheme carried out between October 2007 and March 2009.

Hodgson, saying Speidel devastated her family both financially and emotionally, also ordered Speidel to complete a total of 15 years’ probation after she’s paroled from jail and 200 hours of community service.

The judge ordered Speidel to pay back the estimated $171,096 she stole, a nest egg her grandmother had amassed to keep her living comfortably in a Towamencin retirement community. With the legal fees, the total restitution is $184,696, according to court papers.

Speidel’s grandmother has since passed away, court papers indicate, and Speidel must pay the estate.

In court papers, Corsetti claimed Speidel, after her release from jail, did begin paying restitution, initially about $1,000 per month. However, by the spring of 2012, Speidel stopped paying altogether “after the payments got smaller and smaller per month,” Corsetti claimed.

Speidel, according to court papers, allegedly told probation officials “that she wasn’t working the hours she had been and was running low on income.” Probation officials, according to court papers, told Speidel to pay $300 by the beginning of August and to continue paying that amount bi-weekly until restitution was paid in full.

But Corsetti alleged the $300 payments have not been made in a timely manner.

During the theft prosecution, authorities alleged Speidel, formally of Lexington Avenue in Perkiomen, used the money she stole to pay for tuition at St. Joseph’s University, to make car payments and for vacations, according to the arrest affidavit filed by New Hanover Police Cpl. William Moyer and county Detective Katharine Hart. Testimony revealed Speidel has two advanced educational degrees.

Speidel implied that she also used some of the money to buy things for a boyfriend.

An investigation of Speidel began in July 2009 when the victim’s son, who is Speidel’s uncle, contacted authorities about missing funds from his mother’s account. The Fidelity Brokerage Services account had been opened online in February 2007, according to court papers.

Speidel’s uncle, who lives in New Hanover, and her grandmother, who lived at the Dock Woods Retirement Community in Towamencin, had asked Speidel to assist them in managing the account because she had some educational background in finance, according to prosecutors.

The account was to be used to pay the monthly housing costs associated with the grandmother’s living arrangements at the Dock Woods community.

But Speidel systematically began to empty the accounts to pay for her own personal living expenses, prosecutors said. Speidel “cleaned out” her grandmother’s entire life savings, prosecutors said. The unauthorized withdrawals ranged between $280 and $27,471, according to court papers.